What is Healthy Chocolate ?

It's not Healthy Chocolate when it’s the very delicious white chocolate. White chocolate derives it’s chocolate flavor from cocoa butter as it’s base ingredient. It may contain as much as eighty percent of non chocolate based products and contains no dark chocolate base at all.

Only twenty percent cocoa butter is required, that’s it, the rest can be anything other than cocoa products. According to FDA approved standards for healthy chocolate.

It is loaded with fats and sugars and many other things the medical establishment tells us is not good for us so how can it be healthy.

When you combine those facts with the heat that is used in processing there leaves little room for nutritional values. Heat destroys polyphenols and flavanols and these are the very potent antioxidants that are contained in dark chocolate. It makes healthy chocolate less healthy. White chocolate contains very little, if any of these ingredients.

White chocolate is delicious to eat, but it is benign in health benefits and is also very fattening. No, white chocolate is not a chocolate. It's delicious and more fattening than either milk chocolate or dark chocolate and that's the most that can be said for it.

Chocolate has health benefits only if it’s dark chocolate. Milk chocolate is a slightly more healthy chocolate than white chocolate. The reason? Studies have shown that for some unknown reason, milk seems to block the absorption of polyphenols, the antioxidants our bodies require to maintain good health.

Studies show, if you eat a nice piece of dark chocolate and wash it down with a nice cold glass of fresh milk, the milk has blocked your bodies ability to absorb the polyphenols,flavanoids and flavanols[antioxidants] Contained in healthy chocolate.

Most people think that dutch chocolate comes from the Netherlands, when actually it is a manufacturing process used in the processing of some kinds of chocolate.

The dutch processing adds a food grade alkali to the chocolate to enhance it's flavor and give it a stronger chocolate odor. It is also heated to make the process work. Again, this process destroys polyphenols, phenols and flavanols.

This leaves the dutched chocolate with just a little more healthy ingredients than white chocolate or milk chocolate.

Because heat destroys polyphenols and flavanols[antioxidants] cold processed chocolate would be the one to look for. in cold processing the temperature never exceeds 100 degrees ferenheit. That's like the human body temperature with a slight fever.

To our knowledge there are only two manufacturers who cold process their chocolate and one of those uses the dutching process which destroys polyphenols.

The FDA chart of orac values shows that the ORAC values of cocoa powder are cut by more than half by the dutching process.

Enjoy your chocolate, but I hope you will look for the most healthy one. Eat it in moderation, no more than 3.5 oz per day is good for you.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and are not intended to diagnose, treat, prevent or cure any disease.

Our next article is a short one titled "Facts About Chocolate"

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